'Twerking,' school site, algebra and more

In fact, let’s sell our parks. If we sold Balboa Park for multiple high-rise condo developments, we could close the city’s budget gap for years to come. So, think about it. How much is your local school worth on the market today? I am sure SDUSD board trustees have already thought about it. Well, except Scott Barnett. — Chris Olson, Pacific Beach

Algebra requirement harms youth

Javier Cabral’s article on algebra (“How an ‘F’ in algebra foiled college hopes,” Opinion, May 3) is right on the money. The reality is that the academically elitist policy of requiring algebra in order to graduate from high school harms youth. Many young people cannot handle the symbolism required to succeed in algebra. The great majority of jobs in America do not require algebra. The only reason to take algebra is in order to get into college. And only thirty percent of the kids in America graduate from college.

The unintended consequence of this college only policy is the enormous high-school dropout problem. We drop out a million kids a year in America. The dropout rate in America is 30 percent and even higher in urban areas. Think of this over a 10-year period. The result of this failed experimental educational policy has been 10 million dropouts who have no skills to get a job and are either in jail or are on their way to jail. — James C. Wilson, Ed.D., Scripps Ranch

Prohibiting pot fails as a deterrence

Regarding your May 2 editorial, “How to end the battle over marijuana”: If health outcomes determined drug laws, marijuana would be legal and there would be no medical marijuana debate.

Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Marijuana can be harmful, but jail cells are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican immigration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association. Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been counterproductive. Americans did not begin to smoke pot in significant numbers until our government began funding reefer madness propaganda.

Marijuana prohibition has clearly failed as a deterrent. The United States has higher rates of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available. The only winners in the war on marijuana are drug cartels and shameless tough-on-drugs politicians who’ve built careers confusing the drug war’s tremendous collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant. — Robert Sharpe, policy analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington, D.C.

Conservatism in its truest sense believes in governing in a common-sense manner. It allows for social experimentation over time to determine what the norms of society should be. It’s a slower and more deliberative process. If something that has been accepted for years has over time shown not to be effective, a true conservative will gladly accept the new norm.

Marijuana use is a great example of this. We have come a long way from the “reefer madness” days, and, over time, marijuana use, while not necessarily accepted in law, has been accepted by society. It’s use has never been more prevalent.